The Mediterranean Islands as places of synthesis between Arab culture and European cultures

Abstract

Since the earliest times the Mediterranean h as been the meeting place of different, often diverse and rival cultures. S. Moscati has shown that recent archaeological research in the central Mediterranean area bounded by Tunisia to the South and Italy to the North revealed that certain islands, such as Malta, Sicily (Motya) and Sardinia, played an important role in a process of cultural interaction in ancient Mediterranean history. These islands served as crossroads where ancient cultures met or followed one another in time. Sometimes, as in the case of Malta, a succession of civilizations imposed themselves on previous ones over a period of some three thousand years, the component elements being prehistoric, Phoenician-Punic, Hellenistic-Roman and Christian. It is evident, therefore, that these islands have been the scene of cultural synthesis well before the emergence of the Arabs as a power in the Mediterranean. Therefore, the theme of the article concerns the interplay and fusion, in the Mediterranean islands, of the Arab culture and the European cultures.